[officedweller]

How the frig doesn't their contract with Metrolinx require them to operate to the average speeds and travel times that are in the planning documents (corrected for the lack of transit priority).

Probably because it's not an exclusive right-of-way - so there are a lot of factors beyond your control that could delay the train (like a car stuck on the tracks). No contractor would ever agree to time guarantees (and penalties) unless it was an exclusive right-of-way under their control. The Vancouver Canada Line contract and the Montreal REM contract apparently have such guarantees.

I also think the same entity should be operating and maintaining the lines (i.e. not TTC).

 

[felix123]

Can we not use insulting terms? It adds to the whole us vs them divide that has caused logic to go out the window, and prevents genuine improvements!

Nah he's creating a major problem for Torontonians. He's definitely a luddite geezer. Let's tell it like it is.

 

[privateeye]

As a matter of constituent service, politicians work strenuously to avoid ever having to tell a constituent "no", even if they completely disagree with the constituent.

Four standard techniques for avoiding a "no" include:

1. Reframing the concern into vaguer and vaguer terms until you can bring yourself to agree with the constituent. ("I agree that we need to do more to speed up the LRT and get people moving.")
2. Reframing the concern so that it's all about feelings, and then empathizing with the feelings. ("I mean, I know how frustrated you are, I'm frustrated too! And let me tell you, I hear about this non-stop, and we gotta do something about it, because I'm as mad about the situation as anyone, let me tell you...")
3. Welcoming the suggestion as a suggestion, without indicating any actual support. ("We're hearing from a lot of people about this situation, and, to tell you the truth, some of our best ideas come from consultation with ordinary people, so I'm going to keep your idea in mind...")
4. Referring the matter to someone else (a cabinet minister, city staff, etc.), thus forcing someone else to give the "no". (Or at least feeding the suggestion into a bureaucracy that will never get back to the constituent with a "no".)

It sounds to me like, if you got Doug Ford to agree to "TSP", he steered you right through door number 1 here. (Does Doug Ford support giving priority to LRT vehicles? Sure he does! In fact, every kind of traffic should have priority: we gotta prioritize the LRT, we gotta prioritize the drivers, we gotta make sure we're working in a way that gets everybody where they need to be...)

Thank you for writing this. It’s important not to be naive with politicians especially Premier Ford.

All I’m saying is that he didn’t seem too opposed to it. I didn’t get the impression that this is something he’s actively screwing with. It seems like a municipal issue / culture.

 

[T3G]

At this point, I would like to see Ford would extend his power over reach and revoke traffic management over rapid transit corridors to get TSP running. At the same time, he'll have to mandate TTC to meet certain operating speed criteria or revoke TTC's operating rights as blench of contract to provide acceptable services.

That presumes that he would want to do anything to upset the motorists who think that their personal rights are being infringed if they have to wait a bit longer to let a train with 200 people on board go through first.

As well, revoking the TTC's operating rights isn't even an option. Who'd take over? Metrolinx? As a daily user of both GO and TTC, I can assure you that is not something you want.

 

[urbanclient]

That presumes that he would want to do anything to upset the motorists who think that their personal rights are being infringed if they have to wait a bit longer to let a train with 200 people on board go through first.

As well, revoking the TTC's operating rights isn't even an option. Who'd take over? Metrolinx? As a daily user of both GO and TTC, I can assure you that is not something you want.

The suggestion is to emulate the comparatively well run Waterloo ION LRT, which has a 10 year contract with Keolis (reputable private operator owned by SNCF and CDPQ).

If they are good, they can renew at 5 year intervals, or find a new operator. Not unique to Waterloo, private operators are very common abroad. Paris' trams have competitive bidding for operations too.

Can we not use insulting terms? It adds to the whole us vs them divide that has caused logic to go out the window, and prevents genuine improvements!

As much as decorum is a laudable goal for this forum. Let's be real, policing language won't encourage or prevent genuine improvements.

If any self-identifying car lovers like myself get offended, I doubt that's going to make Mr. Alvaro Alamilla hate transit even more. Being car-brained entails multidisciplinary ignorance and/or elitism. Loving cars is not mutually exclusive with being pro-transit.

 

[JSF-1]

This might be controversial on this forum but I was thinking in all of this discussion about the end to end travel time of the EC the question needs to be asked, how many people are actually going to be commuting from end to end on this route? The majority of people riding the EC are going to be making a much shorter journey. For example someone getting on in Scarborough is probably only going as far as Eglinton, similarly someone getting on at Mount Dennis is probably only going to either Cedarvale or Eglinton. Think of it like this, of the 403,000 people who ride Line 2 everyday how many of them are actually riding the whole line from Kennedy to Kipling? I know from personal experience that that trip takes about an hour assuming no delays, most riders are only going as far as Yonge or St.George. Or of the 625,000 riders on Line 1 how many of them are actually riding from Finch to VMC (in fact why on earth would you even do that). I admit I used to hammer on the Line 1 extension to Richmond Hill since it makes Line 1 even longer but it was often said to me that it didn't matter because the majority of riders aren't riding the entire line, so does that same logic not apply here as well? Does that mean we should ignore slow operations? no of course not but getting caught up on how long it takes for an train to get from Kennedy to Mount Dennis ignores the fact that the overwhelming majority of riders are not going to be riding the route from end to end.

The issue with Line 6 is that it only has 1 transfer and its at the very eastern end of the line so the slowness compounds the further west you go. With the EC however it has 3 transfers with a fourth under construction which will no doubt cut travel times even further for east enders. Something to remember is that travel paterns within the GTA are still centered on downtown and that is not changing in any of our life-times so the EC is more of a high-capacity feeder line feeding riders onto Line 1 and eventually the OL to get them downtown. This is also arguably what Line 2 is as well since its primary purpose was to replace an overcrowded streetcar that was taking commuters from Scarborough, East York, York and Etobicoke to Yonge Street; fast travel between Scarborough and Etobicoke was a secondary concern. Our biggest mistake was only building 1 subway into downtown Toronto and then feeding a city's worth of people onto it everyday; the OL however should fix this. Line 4 was the only route designed with the express purpose of not being a downtown feeder service but a trunk connection between STC and NYC, although in its current state it is arguably just a feeder service. By comparison there is no major economic hub on either end of the EC, Kennedy is a largely residential area, as is Mount Dennis and the York Centre plan died with the Eglinton subway. Finally I think eventually distances are great enough that you would be better off taking the GO Train (if it goes where you need it to) because it will always be faster then the subway and a fully built out RER would make it even better.

Basically what I am saying is that in a real world setting the travel time from Kennedy to Mount Dennis is a meaningless statistic because only a minority of riders will actually be making the full trip every day. The real number we should focus on is the journey time to the nearest transfer point with Line 1 because that will be where the majority of riders are going to and coming from. The OL is currently a non-factor in all of this but it is worth keeping in mind the travel time to Don Valley Station as well since it will be important in the future.

 

[urbanclient]

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/eg...cle_c4406328-fcb4-444f-975d-08700a612d6a.html

Bit of a repost, sharing comments...
https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/1qowfia/eglinton_crosstown_lrt_to_open_feb_8_not_so_fast/
https://www.reddit.com/r/TTC/comments/1qoxf1f/eglinton_crosstown_lrt_to_open_feb_8_not_so_fast/

EDIT: IMO it's a combination of wanting to take credit and to cover their a** on the odd chance it doesn't open on Feb 8. A purported line 5 operator essentially said they're not going to risk it by opening after another potential snowstorm.

 

[A 6264]

It's midweek, so I'll ask the obvious question. How can the latest "rumoured" target date still be unofficial, and at the same time, a week and a half away? Drivers, ticket collectors, station security guards, cleaners,, etc. should have their job assignments by now. There will probably be an opening ceremony which needs to be planned. Either these plans are being made "for sure" without telling the public, OR, they aren't. In which case, are the TTC going to wait until just a few days before the date, to tell everyone to come in to work that day and week? I used to think the claim that they will have to wait, what was it, 6 weeks or 3 months between the official announcement and the date itself, was absurd, but now it's gone to the other extremie.

P..S. I was just finishing this post when Urbanclient's, above, came in. I didn't intend this as a reply, but it is one anyway.

 

[Richard White]

View attachment 711475
View attachment 711473View attachment 711476

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/eg...cle_c4406328-fcb4-444f-975d-08700a612d6a.html


Bit of a repost, sharing comments...

At the risk of beating on a dead horse, the cat is out of the bag. Telling people it will be delayed again would be suicide unless there was a legitimate issue like a station collapse or Mount Dennis burning down.

 

[Bojaxs]

This might be controversial on this forum but I was thinking in all of this discussion about the end to end travel time of the EC the question needs to be asked, how many people are actually going to be commuting from end to end on this route? The majority of people riding the EC are going to be making a much shorter journey. For example someone getting on in Scarborough is probably only going as far as Eglinton, similarly someone getting on at Mount Dennis is probably only going to either Cedarvale or Eglinton. Think of it like this, of the 403,000 people who ride Line 2 everyday how many of them are actually riding the whole line from Kennedy to Kipling? I know from personal experience that that trip takes about an hour assuming no delays, most riders are only going as far as Yonge or St.George. Or of the 625,000 riders on Line 1 how many of them are actually riding from Finch to VMC (in fact why on earth would you even do that). I admit I used to hammer on the Line 1 extension to Richmond Hill since it makes Line 1 even longer but it was often said to me that it didn't matter because the majority of riders aren't riding the entire line, so does that same logic not apply here as well? Does that mean we should ignore slow operations? no of course not but getting caught up on how long it takes for an train to get from Kennedy to Mount Dennis ignores the fact that the overwhelming majority of riders are not going to be riding the route from end to end.

The issue with Line 6 is that it only has 1 transfer and its at the very eastern end of the line so the slowness compounds the further west you go. With the EC however it has 3 transfers with a fourth under construction which will no doubt cut travel times even further for east enders. Something to remember is that travel paterns within the GTA are still centered on downtown and that is not changing in any of our life-times so the EC is more of a high-capacity feeder line feeding riders onto Line 1 and eventually the OL to get them downtown. This is also arguably what Line 2 is as well since its primary purpose was to replace an overcrowded streetcar that was taking commuters from Scarborough, East York, York and Etobicoke to Yonge Street; fast travel between Scarborough and Etobicoke was a secondary concern. Our biggest mistake was only building 1 subway into downtown Toronto and then feeding a city's worth of people onto it everyday; the OL however should fix this. Line 4 was the only route designed with the express purpose of not being a downtown feeder service but a trunk connection between STC and NYC, although in its current state it is arguably just a feeder service. By comparison there is no major economic hub on either end of the EC, Kennedy is a largely residential area, as is Mount Dennis and the York Centre plan died with the Eglinton subway. Finally I think eventually distances are great enough that you would be better off taking the GO Train (if it goes where you need it to) because it will always be faster then the subway and a fully built out RER would make it even better.

Basically what I am saying is that in a real world setting the travel time from Kennedy to Mount Dennis is a meaningless statistic because only a minority of riders will actually be making the full trip every day. The real number we should focus on is the journey time to the nearest transfer point with Line 1 because that will be where the majority of riders are going to and coming from. The OL is currently a non-factor in all of this but it is worth keeping in mind the travel time to Don Valley Station as well since it will be important in the future.

Nah, I disagree with this type of thinking. With all do respect, but this sounds like a typical "Toronto" take on transit. Doubt this sort of thinking would fly in cities like London, Tokyo, Paris, etc.

Are you suggesting that speed isn't a big factor for the line because most riders will not ride the entire length?

So because most people don't ride the entire length of Line 2 we can afford to slow it down as well?

For me personally, the line should be as quick as possible, regardless of whether someone rides the line for only 2 stops or 10.

 

[A 6264]

At the risk of beating on a dead horse, the cat is out of the bag. Telling people it will be delayed again would be suicide unless there was a legitimate issue like a station collapse or Mount Dennis burning down.

One possibility is, it will definitely open Feb 8, but they want to keep it low key this time. Perhaps there will be no opening ceremony.

 

[T3G]

Telling people it will be delayed again would be suicide unless there was a legitimate issue like a station collapse or Mount Dennis burning down.

Would it?

There may be a small group of people who will be absolutely apoplectic with rage, but as a famous rock band once said, despite all their rage they are still just rats in a cage. As someone who has had to deal with using GO buses for many years, and the complacency of most of their ridership, unless there is a large, coordinated advocacy group that escalates a complaint, no amount of personal rage is going to achieve anything, and most people are quite content to sit on their laurels and avoid rocking the boat.

 

[A 6264]

Nah, I disagree with this type of thinking. With all do respect, but this sounds like a typical "Toronto" take on transit. Doubt this sort of thinking would fly in cities like London, Tokyo, Paris, etc.

Are you suggesting that speed isn't a big factor for the line because most riders will not ride the entire length?

So because most people don't ride the entire length of Line 2 we can afford to slow it down?

For me personally, the line should be as quick as possible, regardless of whether someone rides the line for only 2 stop or 10.

I agree. The statement that almost nobody will be riding the train end to end, is kind of ignoring that one of the reasons for building it, was to connect Humber College Polytechnic to the subway. I expect it's an end to end trip for many students.
Though it's before my time, I presume the reason that Toronto's second subway was parallel to and two blocks apart from their first subway, was that serving U of T students was a high priority at the time.

 

[thettctransitfanatic]

One possibility is, it will definitely open Feb 8, but they want to keep it low key this time. Perhaps there will be no opening ceremony.

Considering the history of the line and all the controversies on the way to this point, I'd say it's not far fetched to come to that conclusion.

 

[duffo]

I agree. The statement that almost nobody will be riding the train end to end, is kind of ignoring that one of the reasons for building it, was to connect Humber College Polytechnic to the subway. I expect it's an end to end trip for many students.
Though it's before my time, I presume the reason that Toronto's second subway was parallel to and two blocks apart from their first subway, was that serving U of T students was a high priority at the time.

I would normally say that there is nuance to this - stop spacing will impact how fast you can go anyway, which will be somewhat reliant on what the urban form looks like.

However, the distance between two of Line 5's four interchanges, on its slowest (at grade) segment, is 11 km out of its total 19 km length. So there is definitely the "most" need to bring people between interchanges quickly in its slowest eastern section (on the basis of travel time competitiveness with auto, not on the basis of expected ridership demand).